Walter Miller: Dark Benediction

“I was just knocking the lid off an old breadbox.”

I couldn’t get any answer but evasions, innocent glances, and mysterious smirks. I let him keep his secret, thinking that his enthusiasm for whatever it was he was doing would soon wear off.

Then the photographers came.

“We want to take a picture of Kenny’s treehouse,” they explained.

“Why?—and how did you know he had one?” I demanded.

It developed that somebody was doing a feature-article on the effects of science-fantasy television shows on children. It developed that the “somebody” was being hired by a publicity agency which was being hired by the advertisers who presented Captain Chronos and the Guardsmen of Time. It developed that Kenny’s fan letter, with the snapshot of his treehouse time-ship, had been forwarded to the publicity department by the producer of the show. They wanted a picture of the time-ship with Kenny inside, looking out through the fish bowl canopy.

“It’s impossible,” I told them.

They showed me a dozen pictures of moppets with LTR-guns, moppets in time-warp suits, moppets wearing Captain Chronos costumes, moppets falling free in space, and moppets playing Time-Pirate in the park.

“I’m sorry, but it’s impossible,” I insisted.

“We’ll be glad to pay something for it, if…”

“The kid’s sick, if you must know,” I snapped. “He can’t do it, and that’s that, so forget about it.”

“Maybe when he’s feeling better…?”

“He won’t be feeling better,” Cleo interrupted, voice tense, with a catch in it. “Now please leave!”

They left, with Cleo herding them out onto the porch. I heard them apologizing, and Cleo softened, and began to explain. That was a mistake.

A week later, while we were still drinking our coffee at the dinner table, the doorbell rang. Cleo, expecting an answer to her recent wire to some South American clinic, left the table, went to answer it, and promptly screamed.

I dropped my cup with a crash and ran to the living room with a butcher knife, then stopped dead still.

It stood there in the doorway with a stunned expression on its face, gaping at Cleo who had collapsed in a chair. It wore a silver uniform with jack-boots, black-and-red cape, and a weird helmet with antenna protruding from it. It had a lantern jaw and a big, meaty, benign contenance.

“I’m awfully sorry,” it boomed in a gentle deep-rich voice. “We just drove over from the studio, and I didn’t take time to change…”

“Ulk!” said Cleo.

I heard footsteps at the head of the stairs behind me, then a howl from Kenny who had been getting ready for bed, after being helped upstairs.

“Captain Chronos!”

Bare feet machine-gunned down the stairs and came to a stop at a respectful distance from the idol.

“GgaaaaAAAWWWSSSShhhh!” Kenny timidly walked half-way around him, looking him up and down. “Geee… Gaaawwssshh!”

Cleo fanned herself with a newspaper and recovered slowly. I tossed the butcher-knife on a magazine stand and mumbled something apologetic. There were two of them: Chronos and the producer, a small suave man in a business suit. The latter drew me aside to explain. It developed that the photographers had explained to the boss, who had explained to the client, who had mentioned it to the agency, who had returned the fan letter to the producer with a note. It would appear that Captain Chronos, for the sake of nutritious and delicious Fluffy Crunkles, made it his habit to comfort the afflicted, the crippled, and the dying, if it were convenient and seemed somehow advantageous. He also visited the children’s wards of hospitals, it seemed.

“This on the level, or for publicity?”

“On the level.”

“Where’s the photographer?”

The producer reddened and muttered noncommittally. I went to the door and looked out through the screen. There was another man in their car. When I pushed the screen open, it hit something hard—a tape recorder. I turned:

“Get out.”

“But Mr. Westmore….”

“Get out.”

They left quickly. Kenny was furious, and he kept on being furious all through the following day. At me. Cleo began agreeing with him to some extent, and I felt like a heel.

“You want Kenny to get the full treatment?” I grumbled. “You want him to wind up a sob-story child?”

“Certainly not, but it was cruel, Rod. The boy never had a happier moment until you…”

“All right, so I’m a bastard. I’m sorry.”

That night Abe Sanders (Captain Chronos) came back alone, in slacks and a sport shirt, and muttering apologies. It developed that the Wednesday evening shows always had a children’s panel (Junior Guardsmen) program, and that while they understood that Kenny couldn’t come, they had wanted to have him with the panel, in absentia, by telephone.

“Please, Dad, can’t I?”

The answer had to be no… but Kenny had been glaring at me furiously all day, and it was a way to make him stop hating me… still, the answer had to be no… the publicity… but he’d be delighted, and he could stop hating my guts for kicking them out.

“I guess so, if the offer’s still open.”

“Dad!”

The offer was still open. Kenny was to be on the show. They rehearsed him a little, and let him practice with the tape recorder until he got used to his voice.

On Wednesday evening, Kenny sat in the hall doorway to the living room, telephone in his lap, and stared across at Sanders’ face on the television screen. Sanders held another phone, and we beard both their voices from the set. Occasionally the camera dollied in to a close shot of Sanders’ chuckle, or panned along the table to show the juvenile panel members, kids between eight and sixteen. There was an empty chair on Sanders’ right, and it bore a placard. The placard said “KENNY WESTMORE.”

It lasted maybe a minute. Sanders promised not to mention Kenny’s address, nor to mention the nature of his illness. He did neither, but the tone of conversation made it clear that Kenny was in bad shape and probably not long for this world. Kenny had stage fright, his voice trembled, and he blurted something about the search for a cure. Cleo stared at the boy instead of the set, and my own glance darted back and forth. The cameraman panned to the empty chair and dollied in slowly so that the placard came to fill the screen while Kenny spoke. Kenny talked about stamp collections and time machines and autographs, while an invisible audience gaped at pathos.

“If anybody’s got stamps to trade, just let me know,” he said. “And autographs…”

I winced, but Sanders cut in. “Well, Kenny—we’re not supposed to mention your address, but if any of you Guardsmen out there want to help Kenny out with his stamp collection, you can write to me, and I’ll definitely see that he gets the letters.”

“And autographs too,” Kenny added.

When it was over, Kenny had lived… but lived.

And then the mail came in a deluge, forwarded from the network’s studio. Bushels of stamps, dozens of autograph books, Bibles, money, advice, crank letters, and maudlin gushes of sugary sympathy… and a few sensible and friendly letters. Kenny was delighted.

“Gee, Dad, I’ll never get all the stamps sorted out. And look!—an autograph of Calvin Coolidge!…”

But it never turned him aside from his path of confident but mysterious purpose. He spent even more time in his room, in the garage, and—when he could muster the energy—back in the maple woods, doing mysterious things alone.

“Have they found a cure yet, Dad?” he asked me pleasantly when an expected letter came.

“They’re… making progress,” I answered lamely.